A final journey ending in haunting silence

IN THE seconds after the Queen’s coffin gently descends into the royal vault at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle tomorrow, her piper will play a haunting lament.

With military precision, Pipe Major Paul Burns, from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, will then slowly walk away from the gothic chapel.

As he does so, the swirling notes from his bagpipes will gradually fade until, finally, the 800-strong congregation in the chapel will be left in contemplative silence.

It will mark a powerful and hugely symbolic conclusion to the committal service – a more intimate and personal service at which friends, family and those who worked in the Queen’s household, both past and present, will be able to bid farewell to the monarch.

The momentous second part of a day of ceremonial majesty will be focused on Windsor, the Queen’s adored home where she spent much of her time after the pandemic.

After a procession through London, the coffin will travel in the state hearse from Wellington Arch, by Hyde Park Corner, to the entrance to Queen’s Home Park at Shaw Farm Gate in Windsor.

Instead of taking the direct M4, the route was amended on Friday to follow smaller A-roads. For what was originally a journey of an hour, palace aides have now scheduled twice as long to allow as many people as possible to have a last glimpse of the Queen.

After following the A4 through West London, the cortege will skirt south of Heathrow before passing Runnymede, the meadow where the Magna Carta was signed.

At 3.06pm the state hearse will arrive at Long Walk, the tree-lined avenue that runs to Windsor Castle, and the Queen’s coffin will be borne in another glorious procession.

It will be led by dismounted soldiers from the Household Cavalry Regiment, followed by the mounted Sovereign’s Escort and the pipes and drums of Scottish and Irish regiments and the bands of the Coldstream Guards. A total of 102 military horses will take part.

After 34 minutes, the King and other members of the royal family will join the procession as it arrives in the castle’s quadrangle.

The parade will march to the beat of artillery guns firing from the Castle’s East Lawn and the toll of the Sebastopol Bell – a relic from the Crimea War which is rung to mark the death of senior royals. Shortly before 4pm, Grenadier Guards will lift the coffin up the West Steps of St George’s Chapel, where it will rest on the catafalque. Sixteen months earlier, Prince Philip was borne up these steps.

Inside the chapel will be staff from the Queen’s various estates, most of whom will not have attended the earlier funeral service at Westminster Abbey. Governors general and prime ministers from the Commonwealth will also attend, in a nod to the Queen’s pledge in 1953 to give her ‘heart and soul’ to the Commonwealth.

The committal service, conducted by the Dean of Windsor, will begin at 4pm. In a moment of sombre symbolism, the Imperial State

‘As many people as possible will be able to get a last glimpse of the Queen’

Crown, Orb and Sceptre will be removed from the top of the coffin before the final hymn.

After the hymn the Lord Chamberlain, former MI5 chief Andrew Parker, will break his wand of office and place it on the coffin. The tradition dates back centuries, but this is the first time it will be seen by the wider public.

The coffin will then be lowered into the royal vault at the culmination of 12 days of public grief.

For the Queen’s devoted family, however, there will be one more deeply personal final ceremony.

At 7.30pm the King and other royals will attend a burial service in King George VI Memorial Chapel. There, the Queen will be reunited with her husband in a small chapel that is also the resting place of her parents, George VI and the Queen Mother, and where the ashes of her sister Margaret are interred.